


i only move if i must

by Volts



Series: the beacon's only bright enough when the light decides to leave [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Execution, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:56:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27269836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts
Summary: ‘Who is the third who walks always beside you,When I count, there are only you and I together.'~ The Waste Land. T.S. Eliot 1922 (lines 359-365) ~*Eskel realises, with a frown, there is no breeze.There’s the fire, burnt mostly down.There’s a shower of charred wood pieces on the grass by Eskel’s bedroll in an imprecise fan shape. To put it frankly, the fire looks like it’s been kicked.There’s even a very, very, faint charcoal-y footprint.Oh gods.He shivered, like he’d just had a snow drift dumped on his head.Like he’d walked through someone.*Eskel finds Jaskier's lute in a no-name nekker infested town.*Jaskier comes to slowly. He feels so light. His ears feel strangely numb and his neck--it feels tender?He sits up and swung his legs around as he stands up. They feel numb.Everything is just off, like a mist has crept through the town into the room he’s been dumped in.He’s missing something.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel (The Witcher) & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: the beacon's only bright enough when the light decides to leave [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790521
Comments: 58
Kudos: 231





	1. Eskel

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to 'he did his job right (you can tell by the way he was swaying last night)', you don't need to read that to understand this, just know that Jaskier was hanged by Nilfgaard.
> 
> Content Warning: This fic's main theme is a main character (Jaskier) being dead throughout and other characters' reactions to this. As this is a continuation of 'he did his job right (you can tell by the way he was swaying last night)' this includes description of his corpse post hanging. My tags perhaps err on the side of caution (to be on the safe side) but please do take them seriously. 
> 
> This is going to be pretty angsty, not going to lie.
> 
> Title from 'That Boy' by Robert Hallow and The Holy Men (which can be found on YouTube by searching 'Grey Leaves - Robert Hallow and the Holy Men' - they sing it straight after Grey Leaves). The poem is The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (1922) (lines 359-365)

Eskel leant over and took a moment to breathe. The last nekker was dead. He wrenched his silver sword out of the last one he’d killed and stood up. He was in what had probably been a busy market town before Nilfgaard had ravaged it and necrophages had sprung up. Moving in to devour the dead.

The square’s wooden scaffold was smouldering from where Eskel had used Igni and the cobblestones were smeared with the blood of both necrophages and their victims. The air still hung with the smoke of the burnt-out nest, blown to high hades by a bomb of Lambert’s design. (Eskel would thank him when he saw him next).

Hacking off the head of the nearest necrophage for proof for payment and burning the remainder of the bodies, Eskel left the abandoned town for the camp set up two miles away. The Nilfgaardians had left once the town had been overrun.

He had left Scorpion behind, not wanting him to become food. The walk wasn’t long but the fight had taken it out of him, when the townspeople had said infestation they had meant it. Night draws in.

He’s met with subdued relief from the newly reinstated Mayor who pays Eskel what he was promised. They give him a bowl of thin potato soup and leave him be. He’s content to sit in quiet at the edge of the group and drink his soup. The observes the townspeople, who are already packing up their belongings ready to move back home on the morrow. Hopeful chatter, sobbing, echoes in the clearing.

Something catches his eye, a musical instrument, sitting by the feet of a young woman sorting out spare clothes. It’s a lute. Nicely made, far beyond the means of these people. It has pretty carvings on the drum.

He’s seen it before.

He’d only met Jaskier once, about 17 or 18 years ago. They’d spent the night in a tavern, after Jaskier’s performance – from which Eskel’s own payment had increased, double what the alderman had paid him for dispatching the foglets on the road out of town – chatting over a game of gwent. Jaskier had been happy to ask Eskel for embarrassing stories about Geralt and Eskel enjoyed the night with someone who didn’t flinch at the sight of face. Flirted even.

The lute, a gift from the King of the Elves. Jaskier had shown it to him and recounted the true events of the day he’s met Geralt. (With only a little exaggeration, Eskel was sure).

“How did you come by that lute?” he asks the young woman, who starts uncertainly.

“It was left behind, by the Nilfgaardians,” she whispers, hiding behind her lank blond hair, “It’s so beautiful, I couldn’t leave it.”

“It was that bard's,” a man chimes in, straggly moustache covering his mouth.

“The Redanian spy, you mean,” another says, dressed in red.

“Apparently he used to play in _Cintra_ ,” a second woman says.

“I was in the tavern when they dragged him away,” the first man says, slightly indistinctively, “they wanted to know where the Princess of Cintra was, where she might be hidden. They mentioned _your_ kind too, Witcher.”

“He didn’t tell them anything,” a child piped up, grubbly face looking up into the group of adults, “They had him for months-” the child’s mother shushes him.

“What happened to him?” Eskel asks and he knows he sounds desperate.

“He was hanged on the scaffold,” and the wind leaves Eskel’s stomach.

“It was quick,” the second man said, smiling sadly through his beard. His red shirt has a hole in it, spots of blood blending in with the dye. Eskel wondered, in the less concerned part of his mind, who the shirt had previously belonged to and how he had died. “Laughed in their faces at the end.”

“He was crying,” the first woman, with the lute, interjects quietly, biting her lip. She’s holding the lute like a baby, cradling it.

“He forgave them too,” the second woman says, wetly.

“What?” That doesn’t sound like Geralt’s bard.

“His last words were ‘I forgive you’,” the child says solemnly.

“When was this?” Eskel asks thickly.

“About a week ago, just before those demons came,” and Eskel wonders if the bard’s body had been amongst the first to fall foul of the necrophages.

As if reading his mind, the first woman piped up, high and reedy, “They sent his body on the back of a messenger horse to Redania. As an example against spies and those who work against Nilfgaard.”

How in the name of Melitele was Eskel going to tell Geralt about this? Geralt wasn’t the most verbose of people but he cared for the bard. 22 years was a long time for a human to follow a Witcher about. Eskel had often wondered but had never gotten around to asking if Geralt and Jaskier shared more than friendship, their beds? their hearts?

“How much for the lute?” he asks the first woman, whose hands tighten slightly over it. She’s looking at him, eyes wide, shivering even on a night like this.

“Please,” he forces out.

*

Eskel spent the next few weeks, as he proceeded along The Path, trying to work out what he was going to say to Geralt.

Even as he completed hunt after hunt, he wasn’t sure he could. How did you break something like that?

0

The autumn is quite mild but he feels a sort of chill as he walks, not always but enough for it to be noticeable. (If his medallion had vibrated, he could swear it was a ghost, but it was silent).

One especially bitter night, Eskel lights a fire and determines this night he’s going to do it. He’s going to work out how to say it.

He has the lute; if Jaskier had been a Witcher Eskel would have brought his medallion and swords if possible. Eskel guesses his lute is the equivalent.

He topped up the wood on the fire. There was no use planning. You couldn’t plan something like this. Witcher’s didn’t usually have long term attachments. The passing of time was something that happened to other people; Witcher’s who died were mourned, honoured, but dying on the job was expected. Witchers didn’t retire, after all.

With a sigh, Eskel decides it’s time for bed. He makes sure his weapons are all where he can grab them quickly, counts his potions, and gives Scorpion a goodnight pat.

He really needs to sleep, he’s meditated the last few nights, he’s been trying to power through, but today he’d definitely not been on top form. He settles himself into his bedroll, fluffing the pack under his head and tried to drift off the quiet crackling of the dying fire.

Eventually he drifts off.

He’s startled awake not long later. A scorching pain hitting his knuckle, ah fuck.

Then-

Wolves, there are wolves at the edge of the clearing. He jumps up and dispatches the first one on his first hit. The rest soon follow.

After the fight, he does another check over the small camp.

He realises, with a frown, there is no breeze.

There’s the fire, burnt mostly down.

There’s a shower of charred wood pieces on the grass by Eskel’s bedroll in an imprecise fan shape. To put it frankly, the fire looks like it’s been kicked.

There’s even a very, very, faint charcoal-y footprint.

Oh gods.

He shivered, like he’d just had a snow drift dumped on his head. Like he’d walked through someone. He shivered again and rubbed up the freezing muscles of his shoulders.

Eskel carefully and deliberately sheathed his sword and settled down to sleep.

His medallion still wasn’t humming.

*

Eskel reattaches the lute to Scorpion’s saddlebags. He doesn’t have it’s case so he’s wrapped it in several wolf skins sewn together.

He can’t help feeling as if he’s being watched. He’s heard of mountain climbers, traversing great heights alone, who honestly swear a presence is next to them. He can even recall a bit of a poem;

_‘Who is the third who walks always beside you,_

_When I count, there are only you and I together._

_But when I look ahead up the white road_

_There is always another one walking beside you_

_Gilding wrapped in brown mantel, hooded_

_I do not know whether man or a woman_

- _But who is that on the other side of you?’_

Others said it was a delusion due to the isolation and lack of food. Others a guardian figure, a grip for sanity. Eskel hasn’t previously put much thought to it. Some said it was the ghost of previous mountaineers, untimely fallen to their death.

Eskel knew better. Most ghosts were violent and malicious. True, if you caught a wraith early on, you _could_ reason with it. But you were just as likely to have to reach for the silver sword and Yrden than not.

Changing the direction he was previously going, Eskel turned his horse toward Kaer Morhern. If Geralt was anywhere, it’d be there.

#

They’d been walking peacefully for several months now, trotting peacefully. Pine trees line the little path they’re meandering down, birds chirping.

Suddenly Scorpion jolts between Eskel’s knees and rears up onto his hind legs. Eskel grips for dear life and pulls on the reins as sharply as is safe.

His medallion is jumping off his chest. It takes a split second to pull out his silver sword and face whatever spooked Scorpion, sliding off his steed’s back as he was taught.

His breath fogs, obscuring his vision. A chill washes over him. He can feel his scar cramping, his muscles preparing for a cool down, freezing –

“Show yourself!” One hand grips the sword, the other outstretched to cast Yrden. Ideally, he’d have spectre oil coated on the sword but no time, no time –

What was he thinking? Instinct, not thoughts.

He slashes through a cold spot. His medallion in vibrating in proximity to the ghost. He slashes again.

The ghost is evading his sword, not yet thoughtless enough to mindlessly attack. Following the medallion vibrations, he slashes out again and – fuck.

The ghost’s clever. It’s using Scorpion as shield. Fucking-

“Anyone there-” clearly the ghost hasn’t lost it’s faculties yet, “If not… I’ll look incredibly foolish.”

Nothing.

His medallion is still humming slightly but it’s-

Calm. It’s calm now. But the birds have stopped singing . The wind seems to have dropped. He air is still as cold as ice.

-he’s trying not to think-

The lute. The humming was louder, more alert, by the lute and the cold spot is the height of a man about 6ft tall.

Geralt’s bard. He’d been trying to put the thought from his mind ever since the night with the wolves and the kicked fire.

Jaskier

Sometimes the thinks he can see … something. Not a shape exactly but an absence, out of the corner of his eye.

Nothing was there of course.

Experimentally, Eskel touched the covered lute neck.

(A very, very, small ripple of … something danced up his index finger and rippled over his knuckles before falling away.)

He sheathed his sword. He didn’t want to kill Jaskier. (The little voice, that sounded like Vesemir, in the back of his brain tutted disapprovingly).

Kaedwen. Kaer Morhen. Geralt.

How the fuck was he going to tell him now?


	2. Yennefer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer peels back the sheets and feels her stomach drop out.   
> It’s Jaskier.  
>  Geralt’s shadow.   
> She had known, vaguely, that he had a life outside of Geralt but she’d assumed it was more romantic, courtly, than a professor at the university.   
> There’s an angry bruise around his broken neck, suggesting he’s been hanged, and his face and hands show evidence of torture.
> 
> X
> 
> Jaskier's body arrives at Oxenfurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We find out what happened to Jaskier's body.

Yennefer did not often frequent cities – she was after all trying to avoid detection – and seeing as Aretuza would be the first place Fringilla would look for her, she’d had to settle for Oxenfurt for information. It had the added bonus of being a place where every country, including Nilfgaard, came to spy on each other.

A simple glamour disgusted herself as a wide-eyed student.

Days 1 and 2 were fruitless, the extensive library only hinting at the magic Ciri possessed. Well what did she expect, it wasn’t a magical library. She had found several demijohns of whiskey behind the stacks in the geography section (which she’s replaced back on the shelves with a smile) but fuck all else.

On the 3rd day she watched as a guard carried a body through the gates, Nilfgaardian crest sewn to the sheet. She suspected a trap. The Dean took the body to a side room and a few moments later the guard came out carrying the body again, unwrapped but covered.

The Dean came out, looking put out - whiter than the sheet the guard carried and slightly green as well.

“The body had a Nilfgaard symbol on it,” she asked urgently, knowing all manner of foul thinks Fringilla had done. Remembering the worm that had borrowed into Sabrina’s ear and stabbed her through the abdomen. This could be an invasion.

“A friend of mine, a Professor here. You may even have been taught by him, Julian Pankratz?”

The name meant nothing to her.

“I think not,” she says tightly, and bids him good day.She follows the guard. She follows him to an upper corridor of bedrooms. The guard goes in one. Yennefer waits for him to leave before going in.

It’s a guest suite, Yennefer guesses at the impersonality of the room. The corpse is on the bed wrapped in a bed sheet that has seen better days.

She crosses the room quickly and feels out with her chaos for traces of magic.

And there is. It’s embedded with a spell.

Yennefer peels back the sheets and feels her stomach drop out.

It’s Jaskier.

Geralt’s shadow.

She had known, vaguely, that he had a life outside of Geralt but she’d assumed it was more romantic, courtly, than a professor at the university. She hadn’t even given the bard’s name a second thought, even as they went from rivals to begrudging allies in the 7 years of their acquaintance.

There’s an angry bruise around his broken neck, suggesting he’s been hanged, and his face and hands show evidence of torture.

She can’t seem to connect the two people, the bard so full of life – even when he was glowering at her -, and this in front of her.

She touches her hand to his cheek.

He’s cold.

He’s not decomposing though and a bit of magical prodding reveals Fringilla’s work. She draws back and the candle on the bedside table falls over.

‘Oppose Nilfgaard, aid the Witcher and the Princess, and you die,’ Jaskier’s body says to her silently.

Indecision hits her. She doesn’t know whether to leave Jaskier to be buried by his colleagues or to take him with her to let Geralt pay his last respects.

There are footsteps at the door and the Dean from before enters and startles at the sight of her. She realises that her glamour had dropped, she’s still weak from Sodden.

“I saw the guard bring him in,” and to her horror her words sound thick.

“You knew him?” the Dean asks.

“Yes.”

“I’ll have to contact his relations. His parents are dead but you don’t happen to know-” he trails off and is looking at her, fucking hell, tearstained face expectantly.

She wonders what he thinks of her, perhaps he thinks she’s Jaskier’s lover.

Is he married? Did he have a family, children somewhere that he visits in between adventuring and teaching? She realises again how little of his personal life she knows. She doesn’t even know how old he is, late 30’s perhaps?

All she’d known for sure is that he’d loved Geralt with all his heart.

“I’ll find his family. Take his body to them,” and it only takes a little mental effort to shimmer into the Dean’s mind and assuage any objections he might have.

Opening a portal in Oxenfurt isn’t a good plan, Fringilla will be watching for portals. However, how else does one get a corpse out of the city without notice?

*

Yennefer had foregone conjuring a portal so as to not draw Fringilla’s attention upon her. She had instead touched up her glamour, hired a cart, and informed the university Dean that she’d be taking Jaskier’s body back to Lettenhove, where it transpired the bard was fucking Viscount.

Now she was sequestered in a small house, 2 days riding from Oxenfurt, laying out Jaskier’s body. She had laid bodies out before. Townspeople and Villagers wanting to make sure their deceased relatives wouldn’t rise again.

It was different when it was someone she knew. It wasn’t as if she liked him much.

She washed the blood off his face and wiped the dried mud and viscera from his hands and feet. He was still dirty.

Jaskier shouldn’t be dirty.

He shouldn’t be dead.

She sent magic through him and, when she reopened her eyes, he was clean. His clothes looked freshly laundered but still threadbare.

Next to her and Geralt, two immortal beings brought down to apathy and cynicism for their own survival, Jaskier had always vibrated life and motion and, if not optimism, enthusiasm for everything.

Yennefer sort of feels empty inside.

At least at Sodden she’s been able to avenge her friend’s deaths and injuries, to stand up to Nilfgaard but going after Cahir and Fringilla now would play into their hands.

She looks at the bruise around his neck.

A very clear message to their enemies of Nilfgaard.

~

She went about her nightly routine, removed her make up, changed into her loose nightdress. She paused at the door to the small guestroom where Jaskier’s body was laid out. She opened her mouth to say – what? She didn’t know.

She didn’t sleep well that night, her dreams plagued with a strange Witcher, one with deep facial scars and a lute hanging uselessly from saddlebags. The dream shifts and she’s staring over a crowd of people. Sudden mirth overtakes her and her feet sway in a non-existent breeze.

She jack-knifes awake.

Bodies had been known to give off aftereffects, especially to the magically trained – even layman awoke uneasy with a corpse in the house.

But who was the Witcher? One of Geralt’s brethren, no doubt.

Yennefer, noting that the sun was soon to rise, gave up on trying to sink back into sleep and rose.

The house is still silent.

The bard is still dead.

Jaskier is still dead when she walks past his room purposefully.

She stokes the kitchen fire, fills the kettle with water and sets it to boil. She goes back to her room, brushes her hair, washes herself, and does her makeup in front of her mirror. Then she dresses for the day.

Once the kettle’s boiled she makes tea. She tips her drained cup upside down in an attempt to read the tealeaves.

Death.

What a surprise.

She spends her morning pulling vegetables from the small garden attached to the cottage, then washing them. Then she can’t put it off any longer, her herbs are stored in Jaskier’s room.

She takes a moment to take him in, shoving down her turmoil of feelings deep, then goes into the room to select her herbs.

There’s a cold spot in the doorway. She closes her eyes and empties her mind. There’s a vague presence, true, but she can’t tell if it’s just a shadow – soon to fade, Jaskier’s aura hanging on – or a true ghost.

She goes back to the kitchen and resumes chopping vegetables. Her bowl of salt skids across the table. Not very far but enough.

“Jaskier?”

She picks up the bowl of salt. It’s not cold, so he’s not pushing it manually… She should check his body again, so she gets up to do so. She walks through the cold spot again, walks through Jaskier.

He’s probably tethered to his body. She pulls the forces of chaos towards her and touches his cheekbone. Fringilla’s magic is keeping him ‘young’.

And there he is. She can’t _see_ him, but she can feel him. The body may be an anchor but it’s practically empty, only traces of Jaskier left, tethering his body to the presence by the door.

She can even perceive his phantasmal bloody footprints.

A scratching clank pulls her out of her investigation; the bowl of salt is rocking back and forth.

“Jaskier,” she no longer knows where he is, now she’s not concentrating, but he _was_ by the door.

The room gets colder, her breath mists in front of her.

The salt scatters, grains spilling over the floor.

“Right,” she says, she’s gotten rid of ghosts before.

But.

She couldn’t face Geralt if she didn’t at least _try_ to communicate with his bard.

“Bard? We’re fucking workshopping this,” and she picks up the salt.

She pulls out a kitchen chair for Jaskier, on the off chance he can sit, and sits herself.

“Move this,” and she plonks the salt down in the centre of the table.

Nothing happens.

“For fucks sake, _Julian_ ,” Yennefer says.

No response, though the temperature is still cold, cold, cold. Deep breath.

“Well. I’m going to make my soup. You play with your salt,” she tries to inject as much of their old vitriol into her voice as possible.

Nothing happens until the soup is bubbling, the smell permeating throughout the cottage. The bowl of salt shakes.

She supposes it is rubbing it in his face.

When she sits to eat the soup, the salt bowl shakes so fiercely a grain of salt goes in her eye.

“You’re not serious? Really. Remember I have full access to your corpse.”

Corpse. He’s fucking dead.

Shit.

She’s not going to cry again but the fact he’s dead opens a hollow in her stomach not accounted for by hunger.

She eats her soup, ignores the bard. The salt bowl doesn’t shake again and, when she’s finished her lunch, she realises the room is now stifling. Hurriedly she checks his body. His presence is gone, only traces remain.

She opens the window to let out the heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geralt (& Ciri) next!


	3. Geralt (& Ciri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt was worried. Ciri hadn’t been sleeping properly and he knew from personal experience how draining that was. Her dreams didn’t make sense yet always made her wake up freezing cold and crying. Last night she’d dreamt of Yennefer and a bowl of salt. These weren’t ordinary dreams. The universe was trying to tell them something.
> 
> ~
> 
> The monsters had found Jaskier. Geralt’s bright beacon of hope in the dark had left, been snuffed out.

Geralt has successfully found his child surprise, Ciri. They’re at Kaer Morhen now, safely for the autumn and winter. When spring arrives, they’ll have to work something out, maybe send her to Nenneke so she doesn’t forget about society entirely. Ciri was taking to training well, though she was sick of using the training dummy and annoyed that Vesemir insisted on her reading the bestiary every morning.

Geralt’s just getting into routine of being back at Kaer Morhen – with extended repair works planned seeing he’s here for an extra two months than usual – when Ciri comes down to the breakfast table looking more tired than he’s seen since they arrived at the keep.

“What’s wrong?” he asks after a silence in which she nearly falls asleep in her porridge.

“’m fine,” she grumbles.

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow at her.

“Didn’t sleep so well. Had a dream,” she confesses not looking at him, staring at her spoon like it holds the secrets of the universe.

“What about?”

“I don’t know really. A messenger on a horse, a Nilfgaardian. And there was this laughter. And when I woke up I couldn’t breathe.”

“It was just a dream,” Geralt didn’t really know what he was doing, copying what Jaskier used to do to soothe him, and patted Ciri on the shoulder.

“It didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t a happy laugh,” she said, moving porridge around in her bowl and Geralt can tell it’s really bothering her because even just a short time alone and scared after Cintra had taught Ciri to eat whatever came in front of her.

“I’d best get dressed,” Ciri says, pushing her bowl away to get ready for running the walls this morning.

It leaves Geralt unsettled.

*

Geralt was worried. Ciri hadn’t been sleeping properly and he knew from personal experience how draining that was. Her dreams didn’t make sense yet always made her wake up freezing cold and crying. Last night she’d dreamt of Yennefer and a bowl of salt.

They hadn’t seen Yennefer since just before they started the ascent to Kaer Morhen. She was due back, come spring, ready to start Ciri’s magical training.

These weren’t ordinary dreams. The universe was trying to tell them something.

*

The day they glimpsed Eskel making his way up the treacherous path to Kaer Morhen was a relief. Geralt was already suffering under the combined forces of a growing girl who needed someone to talk to and Vesemir who, as of yet hadn’t settled in for a long chat but still, shot him concerned looks over the dinner table.

The relief was short lived.

Eskel accepted a hug from Vesemir and another from Geralt, shook hands and bowed to Ciri courteously and went to stable his horse. It was once he’d moved his possessions to his room, did he pull Geralt to one side, a serious and forbidding expression on his face.

“Geralt I have bad news for you,” he said as he drew Geralt into his room.

Geralt furrowed his brow. Was Lambert -

Upon Eskel’s bed lay a package wrapped in wolfskin. Carefully Eskel unwrapped it.

Jaskier’s lute.

“What is this?” Geralt growled. Denial already blanketing his senses. He couldn’t breathe.

“I found it in a town overrun by Nekkers and recently vacated by the Nilfgaardians. It. It is _his_ , isn’t it. Your bard’s?” Eskel asked him hesitantly.

“Filavandrel gifted it to him after-” panic was clawing it’s way up Geralt’s throat.

“I’m sorry Geralt,” Eskel pulled Geralt to sit on the bed. Geralt went willingly,

Numbly Geralt talks the lute from Eskel’s hands. No.

“Nekkers?” the words don’t feel real

“No. He was … hanged. The – the townspeople told me he went out well, nobly.”

Geralt can hear what he’s being told but can’t understand it.

Jaskier wasn’t supposed to be hanged. Knifed by an angry lord, maybe. Walking too close to a fight, yes – only in what Geralt could describe as his worst nightmares. But honestly Geralt had sort of expected Jaskier to always turn up.

Like a bad penny.

Singing another song that would worm it’s way through Geralt’s brain.

Jaskier couldn’t _die._

“Hanged,” Geralt echoes.

“By the Nilfgaardians. For espionage and-”

“What,” he growls hollowly.

“Collusion with enemies of Nilfgaard.”

And suddenly Geralt feels so very cold, though a fire had been lit in the room in preparation for Eskel’s arrival.

There’s a loud TWANG and Geralt realises he’s gripping the neck of Jaskier’s lute too tightly… strangling it.

Hanged.

And Geralt does something he’s not done since he was a boy. Before The Path wore it out of him.

He cries. Ugly sobs break out and he can’t stop them. Choked noises erupt out of his chest and out of his mouth and nose.

He never said goodbye.

He never – after the dragon, he didn’t-

Eskel’s arms go around him and Geralt can’t stop himself from sobbing into his brother’s shoulder.

It’s his fault.

If he’d just caught up with Jaskier at the bottom of the mountain he could have left him somewhere safe, somewhere so far north the war was barely spoken of. Or at least kept an eye on him, kept him safe from all the monsters.

Held him close.

But the monsters had found Jaskier. Geralt’s bright beacon of hope in the dark had left, been snuffed out.

“His body…? He croaks, “Did you burn it?”

“Couldn’t find it. The townspeople said the Nilfgaardians had sent him back to Redania to, uh, send a message to his spy master.”

Geralt can hear what Eskel isn’t saying. A message to Geralt: here’s what happens if you keep her from us.

“He’s got to be buried with dignity,” Geralt says, rising unsteadily. He can see the open door an corridor beyond it, he needs to walk through it, everything else falling away.

“Geralt, you are in no state to ride,” Eskel protests as Geralt yanks the door open. Eskel succeeds in pulling him away.

No.

He needs to walk through that door. To the stables. He needs Roach. He needs to get to Jaskier.

“Geralt. Think about it. By the time you get there his friends will have put him to rest. Take a day to prepare, if you still want to go, I will help. I – I can’t imagine what you’re going through-”

The door slams shut.

Both Witchers stare at it, heads whipping around so fast they almost crick their necks. The keep _is_ draughty, but this is the most repaired part of the castle, aside from the kitchen and it’s stores.

The lute gives the softest of ‘plings’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've left it on a cliffhanger. Sorry?
> 
> (The next chapter will be from *drum roll* Jaskier's perspective! It's not yet typed or finished, so stay tuned...)
> 
> Please comment and kudos, keysmashing & emojis are fine!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta


	4. Jaskier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier comes to slowly. He feels so light. His ears feel strangely numb and his neck-  
> -it feels tender?  
> He sits up and swung his legs around as he stands up. They feel numb.  
> Everything is just off, like a mist has crept through the town into the room he’s been dumped in.  
> He’s missing something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've probably noticed, the chapter count has gone up. I realised that I hadn't actually written an *actual* ending, just Jaskier's pov of the last 3 chapters. (The ending's going to be great though, I've just got to get there!!!)
> 
> This here is Jaskier's POV of chapters 1-3, it's the same length as them too (he had a lot to say)! I don't think any new tags apply, if anyone does, let me know.

Jaskier comes to slowly. He feels so light. His ears feel strangely numb and his neck-

-it feels tender?

He sits up and swung his legs around as he stands up. They feel numb.

Everything is just _off_ , like a mist has crept through the town into the room he’s been dumped in.

He’s missing something. 

The commander, Cahir, and the green robed mage walk in. 

“I want you to preserve the body. Make it intact so that when it gets to Redania it’s in one piece. Then the Witcher will know what happens to friends of his,” Cahir says, pulling a ring out of his pocket.

That-That’s Jaskier’s ring. It’s the Oxenfurt alumni signet ring given to those headhunted by the secret service who rented rooms there. 

The mage walks towards Jaskier and he stumbles back, opens his mouth for words that don’t come, but she doesn’t notice him, focussed instead on something on the floor.

It’s a man, chin length brown hair, short beard, grimy face. Dried blood around the mouth and nose, a cut to temple. Clothes grimy, feet bare and bloody.

The man’s head is at a horrible angle, neck broken, and spinal column severed. 

It’s him. 

Jaskier. 

The mage runs her hands over his body, and he feels so sick, but he has no stomach, no mouth to throw up with. He leans back against the wall, surprised he doesn’t fall through as his incorporeal knees threaten to give way.

“It’s done,” the mage says.

“It won’t rot?” Cahir asks and she shakes her head. Cahir swaggers over and Jaskier wants to punch him, claw out is eyes, for all the hurt he’s caused Jaskier the last month. Cahir nods and crouches, picks up Jaskier’s hand and slides the ring back on his finger.

“Tell your agents to watch out for the Witcher at Oxenfurt. Get a fast rider to dump this bard at the gates,” he orders and the guard at the door nods in compliance and leaves, presumably to prepare the horse and rider.

Jaskier watches in hyperventilating, silent, horror as his body is lifted, wrapped in a bedsheet, tied with rope, and slung over the back of a horse. Then he has the strangest feeling, like his body is being ripped in two. One part wants to stay here, the other understandably wants to follow his body. 

He’s still feeling sick, so braces his hands on his knees to throw up. His stomach - what stomach? It’s riding away on the back of a horse - is still empty.

He tries to follow Cahir and the mage, Fringilla it turns out, but he goes dizzy as soon as they get as far as the mayors house, so he stumbles back and the pain lessens and he feels stronger the further back he goes.

Once back in the gaol office he almost feels like his old self, though he’s missing a heartbeat, only seems to be breathing by habit and he can’t touch anything. His neck hurts and he would bet his next song there’s a socking great bruise there.

There’s a cracked mirror above the sink so goes to check himself - his hair was longer than it’d ever been but he’d not had access to a barber even before he’d been arrested. Thankfully, the beard was still fairly short - not yet long enough to be unmanageable. Not that anyone could see him. What was vanity now?

He realises he’d standing in the sink and jumps backward in shock.

It hits him in that moment.

He was dead.

He had not survived this.

He sinks to the floor and puts his head between his knees, a tight feeling in his chest.

He should be crying, he thinks, but all he can think is that his laboured, panicked, breathing, isn’t laboured at all. It hurts in his throat, but it doesn’t catch. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there.

He can’t sit here forever. Ghosts were attached objects, what object was he tethered to?

It wasn’t hard to find. A pile of his belongings were in a crate behind the gaolers desk.

His boots and doublet were missing, no doubt taken as spoils of war. His satchel was still there, scrolls and notebooks present. His bedroll, damp.

But if he were to be attached to anything, it would be his lute, his life. And there she is. He reaches out to touch it, a finger tracing the nearest strings.

She’ll be so out of tune and there are scuff marks on the handle he couldn’t forgive.

A flash of a anger, at life, at death, but most of all towards the Nilfgaardians who tossed his lute about with no consideration for her importance. It’s irrational anger, inconsequential in the face of Nilfgaard’s other crimes, but angry tears still fall as his hands pass through his lute.

He can feel his body moving away fast, but he wants to raise this place to the ground first. See it burn. Watch as Cahir and the mage run in terror. 

Wait. 

He can’t lose control. That’s how wraiths happen. The anger and grief take over and your mind becomes focussed on destruction, he’s seen Geralt fight enough of them. Kill enough of them. 

Is this how they felt?

*

Jaskier felt a jolt within him from where he’d been standing looking at the scaffold from the gaol door.

A pull.

He tried to fight it, tried to stay with his lute but a falling sensation came over him and suddenly he was standing at the gates to Oxenfurt watching the Nilfgaardian ride away. His wrapped body lying across the flagstones before the closed gates. A guard looked over the wall but Jaskier’s body had rolled in such a way it was under the arch, so the guard’s eyes instead fell on the retreating rider in puzzlement.

Jaskier can still feel the lute tenuously holding him in place back in Sodden but his body, that’s his body, was his body, keeps him standing in the cold and dark under the canopy of stars.

He’s discovered at dawn by a group of people wanting to enter the city. A scream breaks the morning air and the guard from the night before - probably about to go home and sleep, the poor sod - descends the keep, opens the gate, and damn near trips over Jaskier. The sheets may be wrapped tightly around him but there’s no escaping what a six-foot-long parcel is.

The Dean of the university is called for and Jaskier doesn’t want to watch this, watch people he knows, has known for years, react to his death, but he’s stuck. Stuck trailing after his body as it’s carried, still wrapped, to a private chamber. 

He’s laid down on the table in the boot room Jaskier used to use when meeting up with assignations. The Nilfgaardian emblem is tucked into one of the bindings and is removed quizzically.

“A trick, do you think?”The Dean asks the guards who confirms the rider fleeing the night before.

“Let’s see what they’ve left us,” the Dean, Kovak, says and Jaskier wants to sob, but can’t can’t can’t -

This man has taught him as a student, yelled at him for lateness, congratulated him on graduation. As a Professor he’d gotten drunk with this man, lost gwent to him, flirted with him casually and ineffectually.

The guard cuts the rope and pulls the linen off the body.

There he is, eyes still open.

Kovak steps back. He’s gone white.

“You know him, sir?” The guard asks.

“Yes. Since he was a boy. Julian Pankratz. Jaskier.”

The noose is still around his neck so there’s no mistaking how he died.

Kovak picks up Jaskier’s limp hand and runs his hand over the ring, “Oh Melitele preserve us.” Kovak had never been recruited as a spy but had been at Oxenfurt so long he had more friends who were than weren’t.

“Poor boy,” and Jaskier, who had died aged 41, laughed into the silent room. It was not a happy laugh. His last tears were still running down his face and, no matter how much they ran, he couldn’t get rid of them.

“Take him to a guest suite. Lay him out properly. There’ll be a funeral. And... takes off the noose.”

*

Jaskier watches as Yennefer tries to shut his eyes. They won’t go. She tries again and again, and he can tell she’s getting frustrated. He doesn’t know what to say, not that she’d hear.

She’s crying, he realises with shock. He didn’t know she cared, honestly. He thought maybe he’d mourn her if she died but what’s one human to a mage like Yennefer?

He wants to stay with her, with his body, but there’s another tug deep in his stomach, dragging him back to his lute. With a feeling as if falling down a well shaft, he allowed his lute to pull him backwards.

The room is in chaos.

Cahir is slashing at nekkers wildly. Not doing much damage, Jaskier notes delightedly. Fringilla appears at the door, her eyes alight with chaos.

“Get out!” Cahir yells, “Tell the men to move out. Grab what can be carried. Torch the place!”

Fringilla leaves and Jaskier can hear her giving orders outside and a whoosh of flames can be seen through the barred window.

Cahir slashes once more at the nekker advancing on him, grabs the torch from the wall and stabs at it. It catches fire. It’s true that fire does stop nekkers, but it is more effective to hack at them with a silver sword too, Jaskier critiques - for once having the best view of a fight one could hope for.

With a moments reprieve, Cahir grabs hold of Jaskier’s satchel, complete with all his songbooks and personal correspondence - they won’t find anything there, anything important was lost when they strung him up and made him to the sisal twostep.

With his ‘information’ grabbed, Cahir flees the gaol, leaving Jaskier and his lute behind.

People are running like ants across the square, nekkers falling upon tripped towns people like starved rats.

A commotion behind him makes Jaskier whip around.

A woman, a girl really, timidly trips through the office. Jaskier recognises her, she works in the gaol kitchens and had brought him very thin soup every few days whilst he had been a prisoner. Her lank hair hangs around her shoulders and she looks as if a mouse could frighten her. Sure enough she screams at the sight of the burning nekker on the floor and cowers into the corner next to Jaskier’s lute.

Next to his lute.

If she took his lute with her, maybe he could leave this place?

He walked through the desk - his non-existent stomach turning at the sensation - and tried to nudge his lute in her direction.

Nothing.

“Marya?!” A woman cries out, and Marya, the kitchen maid, starts.

“Mama?”

A woman appears at the door, “Thank goodness you’re okay. Come on, we’re leaving. Grab nothing, we’ve just got to go,” and Marya scrambles to her feet.

“Come on, love,” her mother says, pulling her hand. And Marya starts to leave.

But then she looks back.

And she grabs his lute. It’s a rough grab, to make sure she can’t let go, but he’s moving. Jaskier follows Marya and her mother as they flee out of town into the edge of a wood about 2 miles away.

*

Jaskier had been walking alongside Geralt for so many years he could keep up with a Witcher’s horse easily. It was easier now he was dead; his legs didn’t hurt at all.

Eskel and Scorpion proceeded steadily but it didn’t seem to matter if they went any faster. Scorpion had bolted once whilst Eskel fought a pack of drowners and Jaskier had found himself being suddenly pulled backwards with his lute.

He didn’t even trip over his feet.

Eskel didn’t talk to Scorpion like Geralt did Roach but did take as much special attention as Geralt did.

Sometimes Jaskier could swear Eskel knew he was there. Maybe Jaskier was causing the Witcher medallion to vibrate?

He had found his voice now. He was feeling more like himself. Only unable to touch anything, or eat, or breath or feel any sort of pressure or, well, live. A dismal sort of existence loomed in Jaskier’s near future.

He wasn’t looking forward to Eskel breaking his death to Geralt. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms but Jaskier had fully intended to join up again with Geralt once he’d calmed down but now...

Geralt would no doubt blame himself, would fill with guilt over things left unsaid. It wasn’t Geralt’s fault, Jaskier could easily have retreated back to Lettenhove and hidden there once the war had started but he had known his calling and it wasn’t sitting in a small Redanian Viscountcy with his cousin Ferrant just waiting for him to leave.

They were sat around the fire, Eskel on a stump, Jaskier on the ground - he had sunk through the log he’d tried to sit on.

Eskel was feeding small pieces of kindling into the fire.

“I was working on a song before I - before. I’d share it with you if I could play. I think you mentioned you could play, once - where was it we met? Cidaris was it? I think I’d just punched Valdo Marx in the face. It’s funny, I never thought I’d die first. Even with all the monsters I thought gout would strike him well before - well. Did I ever tell you about Valdo Marx, Eskel?”

Eskel said nothing, of course.

Jaskier sighed.

“If-If- you should sleep. I’ll find a way to wake you if anything should set upon us.” Jaskier’s last tears were still falling and his voice broke in the silence at the dismay of it all.

Eskel rose from the fire and, with a last check over his weapons, potions, and scorpion, settled down on his bed rolls, swords laid next to the bedroll on one side, Jaskier’s lute on the other.

Jaskier was thankful, the last 3 nights Eskel had spent meditating. Any more and it would start taking its toll on the Witcher’s physique.

Jaskier sat down next to the Witcher’s bedroll, keeping watch over his lute and Eskel. The nights were always longer when you were awake.

So Jaskier is left alone with his thoughts.

Predictably his thoughts go to Geralt. It’s no use thinking about all the might-have-beens.

For one-night Jaskier had thought Geralt might return his feelings. It had been about 5 years ago. Geralt and Jaskier had both been in high spirits. They hadn’t run into Yennefer in months, the alderman had paid double for a golem infesting a nearby ruined temple, and Jaskier had had a good audience that night.

It had been late when they’d stumbled to bed, surprisingly not drunk.

Jaskier had just removed his doublet when he’d looked up to Geralt staring at him. Jaskier would always remember the way Geralt had looked at him then, his eyes like molten gold. Pupils blown wide like a happy cat.

And a moment later Geralt had cupped Jaskier’s face and kissed him. Jaskier had kissed back, gripping Geralt’s shirt and allowed Geralt to lavish attention to his neck. The night had evolved from there.

Bliss.

A conversation did need to be had but Jaskier reckoned that could wait until the next morning.

They never had that conversation. Jaskier had awoken - some muscles sore, others delightfully loose - alone, Geralt’s things gone.

He hadn’t cried.

He’d just lain there, a pit widening in his stomach.

The next time Geralt and he had crossed paths the Witcher acted as if nothing had happened and soon they’d run Yennefer again, and Jaskier resigned himself to a bitter existence.

Perhaps Geralt had been missing Yennefer. Or had taken pity on Jaskier’s obvious feelings - throwing a desperate dog a bone. Or maybe he had decided 1 night was enough, had tasted what Jaskier had to offer and it hadn’t satisfied him.

A resentful pit grew in Jaskier’s stomach at the memory. Why couldn’t Geralt use his words for once?

Well, then, he wouldn’t be Geralt.

A rustling disturbed his reverie.

It was a pack of wild dogs, a warg at their head. Jaskier could just see them through the trees – being dead apparently granted you night vision.

All the better for haunting, Jaskier thought bitterly.

“Eskel,” Jaskier says softly, getting to his feet.

Eskel slept.

Fuck.

He couldn’t let a man who amounted to Geralt’s brother be attacked by wolves. Eskel would awake when they entered the clearing, of course, his Witcher senses feeling the threat, but…

Jaskier tried poking Eskel - his finger passed straight through, as did his hand when he tried a harsher shove.

He aimed a kick. Nothing.

Frustration bubbled in Jaskier’s lungs and caught in his bruised throat.

He kicked out again, this time at the fire.

Sparks flew.

One sparkled on the end of Jaskier’s trousers before falling through. Most of them smoldered out but a small clutch of them shimmered down and landed upon Eskel’s hand. 

He started awake suddenly, swatting at the embers. Then Eskel noted the canine attackers and leapt to his feet silently, drawing his sword.

The fight was quick.

Jaskier couldn’t appreciate it, or even throw hands indignantly when Eskel walked right through him, because he was still staring at the fire in shock. 

His bare foot didn’t even look burned, in fact he hadn’t even realised what he’d been kicking until he’d done it. 

But there it was, a small burn mark on the back of Eskel’s hand. It’d heal soon, but it was there. 

Eskel shivered and Jaskier realised that, to observe Eskel’s hand, he was leaning through the Witcher’s shoulder. It could just be the cold night, Jaskier protested weakly - though lately all nights had been cold. 

Hope blossomed, though.

He had _touched_ something.

*

When the pull next grabs at Jaskier’s navel he’s quite happy for it. 

He’s spent the last 7 hours trying to move anything in the dingy tavern room Eskel had left Jaskier’s lute for safekeeping. He’d managed, so far, to perhaps, perhaps, lightly press down on one of the lute strings. The little note had wrung out like a toll of a bell and, well Jaskier was already weeping but, he practically jumped for joy. He almost did, sinking to his knees in supplication and almost falling through the floorboards in his excitement.

That had been 2 hours ago. You couldn’t call Jaskier a quitter, not even in death, but having a lute in front of him and being unavailable to play it...

He’s pulled into a small storage room with a single bed and - 

Oh, there he is.

He looks good, if he does say so himself, for a dead man anyway.

Clean.

Yennefer walks right through him into the room. She stops just past him and Jaskier has the sudden urge to laugh - she’s standing between his body and soul.

She stares at his body for a moment, looks away, then busies herself pulling herbs out of a chest with dedication.

“Good Morning, Yennefer. How am I, I hear you ask? Well I’m the same as - as - well. I’m following a different Witcher now and-” his voice cracks and the tears on his cheeks seem to grow wetter, “- Listen to me you damned Witch! I’m here! For fucks sake!” He’s yelling, shouting into the quiet and Yennefer is just standing there, so impassive. So fucking apathetic.

He’s lying. Right. There.

She passes right through him on her way back into the main room.

“For fucks sake,” his voice is thick, more of a moan.

He sniffs.

The second to last time they’d seen each other, the three of them, had been in the midst of a ruined temple. To whom the temple had been dedicated had since been lost to time. The artwork and masonry had been beautiful.

Jaskier had written a ballad about a warrior goddess and her dedicated band of warrior women - Jaskier suspected the temple had actually been the home of the virgin women who’d followed the unicorns and had since abandoned the place once the unicorn had become extinct. 

Yennefer had been raiding what was left of the library - and, now that Jaskier had knew (overheard) she wanted a baby, he doubted the wisdom in looking in the library of a harem of virgins.

Geralt had just finished slaying a botchling - it’s family fled, poor thing, buried in a ditch in the wood.

It had been pouring with rain and Jaskier had been damned, yes Geralt damned, if they were going to spend the night in the rain when there was a perfectly suitable half ruin to shelf under.

The night had been pleasant enough. Yennefer and Jaskier had even managed to hold a decent conversation, bitching about the various nobles of the North, before trading semi-playful insults about current fashions. If Yennefer thought Jaskier couldn’t carry off a hat she was very much mistaken.

Then she left Geralt and Jaskier, to sleep in her magically clean non-ruined room, whilst Jaskier made a big show of setting out his bedroll. Geralt had excused himself with an awkward goodnight and followed Yennefer’s path to what probably promised a night of decent sex - Geralt was surprisingly pretty basic in bed - whereafter he fell asleep. 

Jaskier had lain down and tired not to be heartbroken. He had the murals for company, and a song to write.

Standing in the main room of Yennefer’s cottage, Jaskier watched as she chopped vegetables, stripped herb leaves from their stems and -

-she was making _soup_ and he was dead.

He was lying dead in the next room. 

This angered him more than Yennefer and Geralt having sex only a few rooms away had made him.

And Geralt wasn’t here.

He wanted to yell and rage and cry, but he felt so empty and Geralt wasn’t here to hear it...

“Vegetable soup. Is it to be my funeral feast?” He says, sarcastically, “Am I to be buried in your herb garden like a - what will you say to Geralt when you see him? He has his child surprise, oh it’s a perfect family portrait!” He laughs hollowly. 

The bowl of salt skitters an inch to the left. 

Yennefer pauses mid parsnip, staring at the salt.

“Oh fuck,” he breaths out.

“J-Jaskier?” She asks in a small voice.

“Yes. Yes. It’s me, you beautiful sorceress, the love, my light. If you can hear me, I promise to never say a word against you ever again-”

But she’s not looking at him. She’s instead picking up the salt bowl, staring at it intensely then once again walking through him to visit his body.

“I’m right _here_ , Yennefer.”

She’s prodding his face, infusing his body with magic, trying to find him and he’s standing right behind her.

The irony.

“Please!” His voice cracks as he implores at her. Implores her to see beyond whatever magic Fringilla has violated him with.

The bowl of salt, set on the tiled floor, skitters musically.

She freezes.

“Jaskier?” She says again, looking around the room. 

Jaskier knows ghosts rely on emotions so he pulls all his resentment, his anger, his despair, and tries to make it loud and vocal and more like his old self.

“I’m dead, Yennefer,” and he sobs, his tears frozen on his face. 

The salt scatters.

~

Jaskier, now that he’d worked out, well, how to move the bowl of salt, was trying to stick fast to his body and Yennefer. Yennefer still couldn’t hear him and the most he’d done was get salt in her eye - something she hadn’t been best pleased about.

But...

His lute was on the move, heading through Rivia and Lyria - nearing Kaedwen - closer to Kaer Morhen. The tug on his naval grows stronger and as he holds onto his body he feels like he’s vibrating.

“No. No! We were getting somewhere!” 

The energy snaps and he’s catapulted to the base of a mountain. 

He’s moving so fast he doesn’t immediately register a hot horse head butting into his chest, shoving him backwards, until the head then goes straight through him.

Scorpion rears on his hind legs, almost tipping Eskel off. Eskel reigns him in and slides off, swords drawn. And Jaskier can feel the feedback from the medallion.

Fuck.

Eskel has his silver sword drawn.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Eskel - can you... Can you see me?” He backs away, hands out, palms up.

“Show yourself?!”

“I would if I could, _truly_!” He ducks. The sword misses him by inches.

“Fuck!”

His lute. If he can just reach it... 

He dances out the way - Eskel evidently using his medallion to sense his presence – over to the horse. He’s fucking wrapped it - full marks for instrument care, for taking care of his darling, immediate fail for -

-ah shit! He ducks behind Scorpion, Eskel wouldn’t dare endanger his horse, right?

At the lack of Jaskier attacking, Eskel paused in his slashing and called out - “Anyone there? If not, I’ll look terribly foolish...”

Jaskier stays as still as possible.

Eventually Eskel sheathed his sword and climbed back on Scorpion. As he does, he runs his hand over Jaskier’s lute contemplatively.

X

Kaer Morhen is all cold stone and icy courtyards. Jaskier watches in anticipation and apathy as Eskel breaks the news of his death to Geralt. He thought he’d be more – he didn’t know – more emotional? That seeing Geralt break down would either break his heart or fill it with a twisted feeling of glee. 

So Jaskier stares numbly at Geralt cradling his lute on the bed. He’s holding it so tenderly in his large hands. As if the last time Jaskier had been in the Witcher’s presence he hadn’t ripped Jaskier’s heart from his body and devoured what Jaskier had gifted to him freely. He hadn’t expected the careful-est of treatment, not after the day they’d had, but he also hadn’t expected such a direct venomous attack.

Geralt is crying. Jaskier had heard a rumour that Witcher’s couldn’t cry - and it was probably true the mutagens made everything more clogged up, but it was probably true that there were very few places Geralt felt safe enough to cry.

_ Something  _ ripples under Jaskier’s skin. A spark.

The door slams, startling the Witcher’s. The sight of Geralt’s tear stained features breaks something inside Jaskier’s already broken body. 

His lute twangs pathetically, ringing out like the toll of a bell.

All three of them freeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 is being written. Please comment and Kudos!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta


	5. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants there to be a white light he can walk towards. Towards the coast, towards Essi’s grave outside Vizima.  
> Making music forevermore. No one could stop them. 
> 
> “What’s happening?” A scared voice breaks him out of his longing.  
> The shutters are rattling. The fire has flared blue.  
> “That sounds more powerful than a shaking bowl of salt!?” Yennefer says urgently, sounding curious.  
> “It is,” and Geralt’s standing now, he’s seized Eskel’s silver sword and-  
> “No!” Jaskier throws out a hand and Geralt’s thrown back, across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING - Brief mention of self harm. Geralt punches a wall.
> 
> Also I've done barely any editing on this so if there are any glaring errors, please let me know!  
> Also I have only passing knowledge of how xenovox's work, Keira Metz gave me/Geralt one in the game but tbh we never used it.

Ciri interrupts anything that could happen. She bursts into the room as only a child could. 

Jaskier is so happy she’s alright, that she escaped the fall of Cintra and found Geralt. She looks happy enough, but tired. Jaskier hopes they aren’t pushing her too hard.

In her hands is a Xenovox. 

“It’s Yennefer,” she said, before taking note of the room’s atmosphere, “What’s wrong?”

Geralt is staring at Jaskier’s lute like he doesn’t know what to say. He also looks like he’s gearing himself up for fight.

“Geralt’s had some bad news. A friend of his has-” been executed, killed, murdered? Jaskier thinks detachedly, from his place leaning against the wall, still staring at Geralt and his lute. 

Suddenly he’s so very angry. 

He wants Geralt to _put him down!_

_No._

_That wasn’t right._

Not _him_ , his lute.

“- died.” Eskel finishes.

“Oh,” Ciri says, unsurely, “I can get Yennefer to call back,” and it’s such a sweet though from a girl who lost so much in such a short space of time, who probably had no time to grieve properly herself...

Pity it’s Geralt she’s talking to, who holds his hand out for the Xenovox, with a barely concealed snarl, and ends the call himself suddenly.

He’s already internalising Jaskier’s death, putting it away in the same box as all the other guilt-ridden stories. Maybe one day Geralt’ll punch some other hapless, wide eyed, wanderer in the stomach because they happened to mention Jaskier the bard.

The door slams as a vindictive, bitter, pleasure ripples through him. 

Ciri jumps and Eskel, Eskel stares at Jaskier’s lute.

“Geralt,” Eskel murmurs. 

“What,” Geralt snaps like a caged, well, wolf.

“Look quickly over there, by the tapestry, the floor, what do you see?”

Jaskier looks too. He sees his own, bloody, footprints but-

“I don’t think Jaskier’s quite gone, yet,” Eskel says gently, “The doors slamming like that confirmed it. I think almost saw him on the journey here. Only a flash.”

“What unfinished business would Jaskier have?” Geralt asks.

“Jaskier’s dead?” Ciri asks in a small voice. He used to play at parties in Cintra, sometimes. He’d even written her a song, once.

“Hm,” Geralt says, distracted.

No! He’s still here, dammit!! Geralt gets up and begins examining Jaskier’s fading spectral footprints.

“Are you ... still here ... Jaskier?”

And Jaskier isn’t 100% sure why he did what he did next except he’s dead dead dead and Ciri looks like she’s about to cry and Geralt -

\- so he _shoves_.

Geralt, crouched down and unready, goes sprawling.

Eskel jumps to his feet, instinctively ready for a fight.

Geralt’s face betrays shock and disbelief and -

\- hope.

Jaskier’s still dead, what’s hopeful there?

The Xenovox vibrates again. The four of them stare at it.

Eskel is the one who actually answers the Xenovox.

“Who’s this?” Yennefer questions sharply, the xenvox making her voice wobbly and indistinct.

“It’s Eskel, Madame. Now is not a good time, Geralt is...”

“What is it Yennefer?” Ciri says, still staring at Geralt’s sprawled form.

“I need to talk to Geralt about a friend of his, it’s important.”

“What?” Geralt grunts hoarsely. 

“Geralt, it’s Jaskier. He...”

“Shut up,” Geralt’s shaking his head, his voice thick. 

“... you’ve heard then.”

“I, uh, found his lute,” Eskel chips in. 

“I found his body. In Oxenfurt.”

There was a silence in the chilly room at Kaer Morhen. Eskel perched on the bed, Geralt still on the floor. Ciri shivering slightly at Geralt’s shoulder.

Jaskier standing, silently, in observance over Geralt.

If he could breath he’d be panting. 

Geralt’s staring through a finger tracing the clean, blood free, floor.

“I don’t think he’s gone. Not completely, Geralt. There’s a prescience. It’s not here now, but yesterday -“ Yennefer starts.

“We’ve felt it.” Geralt answers shortly.

It. He’s not a fucking it. He’s a person, a person with feeling. 

A life. His life.

His students. 

His songs.

His lovers.

His _life_.

Was Geralt now going to run for his silver swords, now Jaskier was but an it?

An it who’d loved and been loved. Who’d held and kissed and devoted. Who’d laughed and cried. Who’d teased and danced. Who’d sang and played. _Dedicated_.

He’d taught. He’d changed _the world_. Who was _Geralt_ to call him an it, after the life they’d lived together?

Was he but a fly, to be swatted as an annoyance?

“Fuck you, Geralt. I loved you. I love you still.”

He’d see Essi. Is that the only silver lining? He can see her.

He could hold her in his arms again, whirl her around. 

His poppet. His family.

Geralt had broken her heart too.

No that wasn’t true. Essi had fancied Geralt, had fallen for him as quickly as Jaskier fell for new people everyday, but they’d parted amicably. 

He could see her again.

He wants there to be a white light he can walk towards. Towards the coast, towards Essi’s grave outside Vizima. 

Making music forevermore. No one could stop them... 

“What’s happening?” A scared voice breaks him out of his longing.

The shutters are rattling. The fire has flared blue.

“That sounds more powerful than a shaking bowl of salt!?” Yennefer says urgently, sounding curious.

“It is,” and Geralt’s standing now, he’s seized Eskel’s silver sword and-

“No!” Jaskier throws out a hand and Geralt’s thrown back, across the room. The sword clatters at Jaskier’s get, he couldn’t move the silver.

There’s a ringing in the room, a finger dragged along the wet rim of a wine glass but painful to hear. 

Ciri has her hands over her ears. Eskel’s floored, almost convulsing under the assault to his Witcher senses. 

Geralt is -

Geralt is -

Geralt.

Geralt. There’s blood on the wall behind his head. He’s slumped against the cold stone, staring blankly into - no _at_ Jaskier.

And Jaskier _can’t_.

He can’t go far, his lute, after all but...

He curls up to cry in the broom cupboard across the hall. 

He cries. He cries.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been crying for. How long has it been since that day on the scaffold?

He feels so cold.

His bare feet press against the ice warm paving slabs. His head presses into his lilac scented knees. 

(He wants to be back in that bare little hut, watching a bowl of salt wobble.)

He can taste the salt, running down his cheekbones and into his beard.

Is this his coffin? A dusty, spidery, broom and boot cupboard?

No, Yennefer has his mortal remains.

At least Essi had been buried with her lute.

The tugging pulls him from behind his navel. He lets himself fall through nothingness.

Yennefer is sitting at her kitchen tale, a mug of mint tea in front her.

“He’ll be somewhere close,” she’s saying into the Xenovox.

If he had been in a better mood he would have laughed.

Jaskier sits int the still-pulled-out chair, what amounts to his body doesn’t even think to fall through it.

He wonders what would happen if he were to just lie down through his body?

So he tries to do just that.

It should disturb him, lying through his corpse. Mostly he feels nothing.

There’s a painful, aching, numbness and a boredom completely at odds with his anger of not so long ago.

How long had it been? He’d been losing time, he knew that, but how long had it been?

Where they going to exorcise him?

What would happen then?

“Are you there, Jaskier?” Yennefer is standing in the doorway, looking tense.

He says nothing.

She sighs.

“No I can’t see him,” She says into the Xenovox, “But he’s here... quiet actually.”

Of course he’s fucking quiet.

(Jaskier feels the fire in his stomach - and isn’t that a question? He’s lying on his body, his stomachs are matching up, lying body-to-soul. Can this mangled pretence of a living being claim to feel anything in their stomach? - spark to light).

“What do you expect, Yennefer,” he murmurs, staring at the ceiling, his face - _is it a face?_ \- twisted into an unhappy twist.

But she’s talking about him like he’s not there. (He’s not. He’s not.)

She and Eskel are discussing what to do with him. Geralt’s silent, of course he is.

 _Will_ they exorcise him? _Will_ he be buried in Yennefer’s herb garden?

In a few years time they’ll be eating _him_ as soup.

He laughs.

Jaskier soup.

“Is it curtains for me, darling? Will you do it? Or will Eskel have the honour? Might be difficult from all the way in Kaedwen?” Though they still had his lute, of course.

“I think Geralt ought to be there,” Eskel says, suddenly loud through the Xenovox. Yennefer’s worked out the connection, then.

“How is he?”

“He’s ... shaken.” Vaguely, over the Xenovox, Jaskier can hear Geralt apologising, over and over.

Jaskier can imagine him sitting on the bed in Kaer Morhen, cradling Jaskier’s lute and rocking back and forward in emotion. Are tears running down Geralt’s face? Is Ciri sitting beside him, patting his arm?

He can _imagine_ it, he’s always had a good imagination, not expect it to be true.

*

The dark shape flaring in front of him. The silver sword falling to the floor. The pain as his head hit the hard stone wall. The wooden floor swims before him in a way he can’t explain. The comforting hand on his shoulder, Ciri, Geralt thinks absently.

There’s a weight in his arms, he doesn’t remember picking it up, doesn’t remember sitting on the bed.

Vaguely he knows Eskel is making conversation with Yennefer. He can’t bring himself to care.

“By the sea.”

“-yes we ought - What, Geralt?” Eskel says, his voice irritatingly soft.

“He’d want to be buried by the sea. On the coast. Or else Vizima, next to Essi.” He doesn’t quite feel real. Rather like he’s wading through fog.

“Geralt. We need to exorcise him.” Eskel kneels before him.

“No he needs to be at rest,” Geralt growls firmly.

(What would Vesemir say?)

Eskel looks at him, hard. Then he sighs. “Fine. We’ll try your way first. But I - I won’t hesitate if he throws you again, Geralt.”

Geralt shakes his head.

Jaskier wouldn’t.

Not again.

It was his fault. He should never have picked up the sword. He hadn’t, he hadn’t _wanted_ to believe it could be Jaskier. 

“Do we go now?” Geralt asks listlessly.

Eskel shifts from foot to foot, “We won’t have time to get back here before the snow sets in properly. We’ll have to move quickly.”

Geralt doesn’t want to move.

He had been so animated earlier, ready to ride through the night to Redania, but now…

He just wants to be alone.

“Ciri,” Eskel looks so very unsure of what to do with her, his own encounter with his child surprise had ended so badly. “I sense it wouldn’t be safe for you to travel right now. It’s be best for Vesemir to oversee your -”

“I want to see Jaskier. He used to come to Cintra. I want to say goodbye. Besides, I’m due to go to Nenneke in the spring, this’d be good practice,” Ciri argued.

Geralt could see that Ciri shouldn’t be travelling right now but couldn’t move himself to argue.

“Triss should be coming. She could portal us,” Ciri said, persuading Eskel, “We just need to get to Ard Carraigh, away from the keep…”

Geralt had forgotten he’d asked Triss to come, to examine Ciri, to see if anything more could be learned about her status as a source and about her strange dreams (some of which he now knew could be attributed to Jaskier). He should care, Triss coming should move him in someway. He couldn’t even bring himself to be uncomfortable.

With Jaskier gone he couldn’t find it in him to care… How could he return to normality, the path, the day to day life of Witchering, the good and the bad parts of life, if there was no Jaskier to liven up his wizened heart?

It would skip. It would swell. His cheeks had once even blushed in pure joy after a night of revelry.

He should have stayed that night. He’d been warm, delightfully warm, and content, and Jaskier had smiled in a way that had made Geralt’s lungs forget how to move. He’d woken up very early the next morning as the Inn staff had woken up. A cold shiver had over taken him at that moment. (C _oward, coward, coward)_. How many Inn workers, tavern owners, barkeeps had Jaskier charmed? How many adoring fans had caught his eye?

Carefully Geralt had redressed, packed his belongings, and taken his leave. He wouldn’t make it awkward. He wouldn’t put his feelings on Jaskier. (It would break his heart if Jaskier awoke and treated Geralt like his other casual lovers).

Ironically – in the midst of their tumultuous relationship – Yennefer was the safe option, he knew where he stood with her. She loved him, though she wished she knew what was wish and what wasn’t. He loved her.

Now it was too late for him and Jaskier. For Jaskier.

Mechanically Geralt let himself be prodded through packing.

Triss was due any day now.

He didn’t want to go.

He didn’t want to see.

In sleep Jaskier tossed and turned. He kicked. He snored and drooled. He hummed and talked.

Geralt didn’t want to see him so still.

Quiet.

He tried, one night, as they awaited Triss, to play the lute. Jaskier had made it look so easy. (He had practiced, practiced, practiced). A discordant twang had resounded within Geralt’s still bedroom. And Geralt had burst into tears. He was supposed to be holding it together for Ciri and yet here he was crying. She had been through so much. Her entire family dead.

Jaskier was dead.

What was one –

What was one bard –

-to Cintra.

Geralt punched the wall of his room. He broke three fingers. Eskel and Vesemir had to pin him down to stop him doing it _again_ and _again._

How dare –

Who was Geralt to dismiss-

  
The afternoon Triss arrived, Geralt let Eskel explain. She met Ciri.

By nightfall they were ready to go. They’d leave the next morning. Triss had been travelling all day. It was good of her to travel again.

The sunrise is dull.

The birdsong is grating.

Every facet of nature jumps out at him. Poetry, the lack of poetry, hits him with every round of the track. The soft breaths of Eskel, Ciri and Triss. Their quiet footfalls. The silence.

He wants to scream.

He’s almost glad when they get to the place where they can portal safely.

~

Yennefer found herself once again transporting a corpse, reusing the cart she’d acquired at Oxenfurt.

There hadn’t been a funeral for those lost at Sodden. Yennefer had never been to a funeral for someone she cared for. The closest was for the Princess of Aedirn, who’s grave she’d dug herself.

She’d laid Jaskier, as if asleep, under a sheet. Presently, she climbed up next to him, sitting on the end of the cart.

The cliff she chose was a beautiful spot. The wind was blustery. The seagulls loud.

The clouds fluffy.

Jaskier’d like that. She uncovered his face.

“We’re here,” she looked over to his corpse, “There are puffins. On the cliff,” she said.

Nothing, not even from the bag of salt he’d hung from her saddlebags.

“Once you’re laid to rest your shadow should go.” Once Geralt says his piece to Jaskier’s body, finishing whatever business the bard had on the moral plane.

“I liked Her Sweet Kiss,” she admitted grudgingly, “I rather liked the idea of being likened to a storm. To a natural disaster. ‘Red sky at dawn’ wasn’t as awful as it could have been. Could have done without the slander though, even after that shit show. Someone feeling a little green eyed?”

The presence, Jaskier, was here. He been walking beside the cart earlier. She only saw it in direct sunlight and only if she concentrated. A murky not-shape amongst the bright sun.

“Please go quietly. He wouldn’t survive is Eskel and I have to force you.”

He’s been very quiet, the whole journey. Out of an obligation she hadn’t quite understood, she’d paused at the last temple they’d passed – the kind that had a little shrine for a large number of the major deities – in case he’d wanted to make peace or something. She’d given him an hour whilst she fed her horse, had a piss, and eaten lunch.

She feels a rippling in the air and hopes to every God in that temple it’s Triss and not Fringilla.

4 figures step out.

Triss she hugs, having not seen her since Sodden. She nods at Eskel who inclines his head in a sort of bow. Foolishly they’ve bought Cirilla along, but she can’t berate Geralt about it. Now now.

He looks like a man wrecked. He falls on her shoulder in sob.

She rocks him slightly.

~

Watching Geralt fall onto Yennefer doesn’t anger him, as Jaskier thought it would. Mostly he’s glad Geralt has someone to hold him.

He’s feeling decidedly odd. Sick and dizzy, like he’s been spun around and around.

He’s using the side of the cart for balance.

Black dots appear across his vision, is he crossing over?

Geralt untangles from Yennefer. Jaskier’s lute is on his back, in a proper case - where did he get that? - carefully strapped next to the swords.

Ciri has approached the cart. No, no, she can’t see -

“Stop her,” he gasps out - why is he gasping?

“Oh,” she says in a small voice, tears in her eyes, “It _is_ him. I hoped...”

Eskel pats her shoulder.

Geralt’s eyes are red. His mouth pressed in a stiff frown. Frozen. Stoic. He’s a mess inside, Jaskier realises. He’s shoving it down, whatever he’s feeling. He’s burying it.

“Don’t you dare. I deserve...” Jaskier sinks to his knees, hand braced on the wheel, “Let me go out well, Geralt. Let me pass on peacefully.”

Eskel looks tense, as if he too realises this is _the_ moment. The moment between laying an old friend to rest or awakening a wraith. Jaskier had eavesdropped Eskel’s words to Yennefer as the Witcher awaited Triss. There’s a danger that if Jaskier doesn’t rest now he’ll latch onto the lute permanently. Go vengeful with unfinished business. 

Geralt’s staring at Jaskier’s uncovered face, he’s keening in the back of his throat.

Jaskier pulls himself up, shakily, “Say something,” he pleads, “Do something,” he wiped the tears from his cheekbones, “Geralt.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt chokes out and falls as his knees buckle.

“Let’s give him a moment,” Eskel suggests. (The three of them sit under a tree not so far away.)

Geralt pulls down one side of the cart, so he can be eye level with Jaskier’s body. Jaskier’s spirit watches from the other side.

“I. I. Dammit Jaskier,” Geralt growls, “Why - why couldn’t - why - you were supposed _to live_.”

“You’d have outlived me anyway,” Jaskier says dully, his head’s aching, forehead resting on the wheel.

Geralt lifts Jaskier’s hand and bows his head over it.

“I can’t remember any of your songs, not the words. But I remember - I love, loved - how you sang them. The whole room would light up. The way you would smile… I’d have the melody in my head for weeks. I tried to play it, your lute. So, I could show you...” His voice cracks and a sound like the wind’s been punched out of him leaves Geralt’s mouth.

“ ‘s too late,” he rumbles, the sound cracking.

 _Yeah_ , Jaskier thinks, _it’s too late_.

Lightheaded. Drunk. That’s what Jaskier feels like. And so, so, sorrowful.

“We’re losing light,” Eskel interrupts the sombre atmosphere, “We three can dig...”

It’d be more sensible to burn him, Jaskier thinks hysterically - he’s so lightheaded - lessen his chance of rising, detract Grave Hags but...

But Geralt says Jaskier would want a gravestone. Like Essi’s. Jaskier could actually not care either way, whether he’s buried or burned, whether his gravestone is a marker or but a symbol, but he appreciates the thought Geralt has put into this.

The honour he is giving him.

The grave is dug.

Eskel and Geralt lift Jaskier carefully into the grave, only bumping him once - to which Geralt apologises and smooths over Jaskier’s rumpled clothes and unbruised skin. It hadn’t hurt. Much.

Jaskier himself stands at the foot of his grave. Triss sits a little way away, he hadn’t ever met her after all. Ciri and Yennefer stand to his right. Eskel and Geralt to the left. _Himself_ ahead.

“We should have redressed him,” Ciri says through snotty tears, “He was always so brightly dressed.” She knelt and lay a posy of dandelions, buttercups, and daisies by his head.

“Goodbye Jaskier. I’m. I’m so so sorry,” and she bursts into tears.

“It’s not your fault,” Yennefer comforts, “the idiot,” she sniffs, “was very good at getting in and out of his own trouble.”

“But this time. It was because - because...”

“Sh sh,” Jaskier says, “Not your fault Princess.” Ciri stiffens for a split second in Yennefer’s arms, then wipes her nose.

_Can she hear him?_

Eskel goes next. Jaskier wonders what he’s going to do, they’d only known each other a matter of hours after all. To Jaskier’s surprise he pulls out his purse and extracts a floren and ducat. He leans down and places them on the other side of Jaskier’s head. 

“For all your help over the years. May they ease your way across The River as you aided us along The Path.”

Jaskier laughs. The breeze whips at the grass.

The bright yellow flowers held his name, his beginning. The coins, his legacy on earth and his passage to the next. Now for his life. His heart.

Geralt unwrapped his lute.

He felt like a butterfly, trapped in a jar. Fluttering against the lid. Waiting to be let out. 

He didn’t want to leave them.

He wanted to meet Eskel properly. Meet Triss full stop.

He wanted to get drunk with Yennefer and snipe about people they knew.

He wanted to see Ciri grow, her first spell, her first contract.

And most of all he wanted to stay with Geralt. He wanted to hold Geralt close. Bicker with him. Laugh with him. Throw him the best stag party when Geralt eventually married Yennefer. Part from him with sorrow and great him in spring with an elation like no other.

He was not yet ready for eternity.

Geralt’s holding the lute now. Cradling it safely - and Jaskier feels so loved.

Jaskier could rant and rage. He could scream.

He couldn’t so that to Geralt. Not when Geralt was holding onto him so carefully.

“You deserve more,” Geralt murmured, running his hand over the strings so delicately.

Jaskier smiled wanly as Geralt rested the lute down upon Jaskier’s chest, bringing his limp hands up to cross over it.

“No, I don’t Geralt. No, I don’t.”

Contentment.

He was fading. Blurring around the edges.

Geralt stood up, unshed tears spilling over onto his cheeks. His hair blew in the breeze.

The afternoon sun dappled over the cliff top, the last warm rays of summer glinting off a star pendant, the Witcher swords and Jaskier’s lute strings.

And Jaskier, spinning in a feeling of escaped butterflies, finally free ...

 _... took a deep breath_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell I have a lot of Essi feels, can't you? 
> 
> There will be 1 more part to this series where the ending is more ... hopeful?  
> (Working title is 'Hello' if that makes anyone feel any better?) 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this!! Please comment and kudos!! (Even if it's keysmashing or emoji's)
> 
> Find me @whatkindofnameisvolta on Tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! Please kudos and comment, even if it is just keysmashing or emojis. If anything else needs tagging please let me know!  
> Find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta


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